A church planter in India’s Maharashtra state was brutally killed by Hindu extremists after suffering years of abuse for his Christian faith amid escalating religious intolerance and violence in the country.
Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reports that on July 10, unknown Hindu extremists murdered Pastor Munsi Thado, 35, and left his body in the forest near Badpari village in the Godcharoli district of Maharashtra state.
The Hindus reportedly dragged the pastor from his home, ignoring his wife Rajini’s pleas for his life to be spared.
In the five years preceding his death, Pastor Munsi lived in the forest near Badpari village due to village pressure. Village leaders angered by Munsi’s evangelistic .... 

The Lok Sabha passed the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020 on Monday even as the Opposition raised concerns that the legislation may be used to target political opponents and religious minorities.
Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, who introduced the Bill on behalf of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, defended making Aadhaar a mandatory identification document for all the office bearers of an NGO or an association seeking foreign donations.
He said the 2018 Supreme Court order allowed the government to make a separate law in areas where Aadhar card is required. “A law can be brought to make Aadhar mandatory. Why some functionaries can hide their identity,” Mr. Rai asked.
Supriya Sule of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) attacked the government on  ... 

Members of the Yuva Shakti Sangathan accuse a Christian clergyman of trying to convert hundreds of Hindus. Rev Santosh Kannaujia denies the allegations. Local Christians gather only to pray. For the Global Council of Indian Christians, Hindu radicals think Indian Christians are second-class citizens.
Hindu extremists from the Yuva Shakti Sangathan attacked a small Pentecostal community in Bela, a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, terrorising its members last Sunday.
Speaking to AsiaNews, Sajan K. George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), said that a dozen of Hindu extremists, associated with Hindutva, a pan-Hindu extremist ideology, went to the home of Santosh Kannaujia, a local Pentecostal clergyman. ...” 

Harassment of Christians by hard-line Hindus in northern India ended in police coercing a pastor to agree to stop holding worship in his home after an officer threatened to make false charges against his son, he said.
The pastor said the coercion by police in Uttar Pradesh state came after his son, 19-year-old Pawan Kumar, on Aug. 25 asked intoxicated Hindus to stop yelling disparaging remarks about Christianity outside their home in Tarkulwa village, Maharajganj District.
“The officers at Shyam Deurwa police station joined hands with the assailants and forced us to sign a document vowing that we would never conduct prayers in our home, and that we would not share gospel with anyone,” the house-church leader, identified only as Pastor Sugriv, told Morning Star News. “I was forced to sign it.....” 

"The life and courage of these people is a legacy for the Church and we want to keep it for future generations": with this quote from John Paul II, Archbishop John Barwa, of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, urges his faithful to remember the martyrs of Orissa, killed in an anti-Christian pogrom in 2008. At the behest of the Bishops' Conference of the region, the day of the memory of the martyrs is set for August 30, tomorrow.
In 2008, starting from August, Hindu nationalist violence, unleashed above all in the district of Kandhamal, destroyed 395 churches and places of prayer of Adivasi and Dalit Christians; 6500 houses were burned; at least 100 people killed; over 40 women were raped, harassed and humiliated; schools, social services, health centers destroyed or vandalized; more than 75 thousand people displaced; many Dalits forced to (re) convert to Hinduism. Even today, none of those responsible for the violence have been brought to justice.

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